A novel application linking robots and insects. Not really Biomimicy, but a sort of Biosynthesis. Not sure how practical this is for a real application, but impressed by the novelty of what EPFL in Lausanne is doing.
Two small robots with ants Robotic Bugs Train Insects to Be Helpers
Horizon Magazine Aisling Irwin
Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, working as part of the European Union-funded CyBioSys project, are developing mobile robots that are learning to work with insects to help serve humans. "The idea is to be able to solve [a] problem with a better solution than they [the robots and insects] can produce individually," says EPFL's Bertrand Collignon. The robots, which "live" with a colony of ants, spot signs that food has been discovered with a camera mounted inside the nest. The camera alerts the robots when it detects an increasing number of ants leaving, which is a sign that food has been found. After the ants have led the robots to the food, the robots carry it home much faster than ants could by themselves. Collignon says this can be described as a "cyber-biological system," which improves both on the natural order and on what robots could achieve on their own. .... "
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